Down with the blaze
by JPalmerGirl
Summary: When a close member of Jimmy Palmer's family is wounded and near death, new things about the young M.E are coming to light...he has a twin? He's disabled? His sister's a firefighter? He's jewish?
1. Chapter 1

Helen Keller was born completely blind and completely deaf. But still she wrote a book and became successful in her life. John Palmer read her book as a child but he had brushed it off as a lame school assignment, nothing to be taken seriously, nothing that would ever happen to someone he loved. But he was wrong and he knew that all too clearly when his wife Eunice gave birth to his second and third children. The little girl who came out first was healthy, pink and strong even though she was premature, but her twin brother was just as premature and was tiny and sickly.

A few days after the twins were born, the doctors gave the Palmers bad news. Their son was having trouble breathing, his lungs were so under developed that they refused to function. They gave the distressed parents a choice, they could give him an experimental medicine but if they did, he would either be deaf, blind, both or he was going to die. They had to take the chance to save their son. The result was a little boy who was blind in one eye and 95% deaf in both ears.

They named their little boy Patrick James and their little girl Patricia Jennifer, twins so they matched. During their childhood, to the surprise of their parents, P.J was the most athletic despite his disabilities. He wore eyeglasses with a contact to make his blind eye look normal and for his hearing, he wore a pair of bulky over-the-ear aids. His parents promised him that he would eventually be able to get aids that would fit inside his ear, so he could look and feel more normal.

Their oldest son Clark, wasn't athletic at all. The young lanky boy would spend hours and hours in his room with his coke-bottle like glasses, reading or playing computer games. While Patricia or 'Patsy' as people liked to call her, was gifted in music and spent most of her time in choir and band. She was nothing like her twin brother P.J.

When Clark graduated high school he moved on to college to become a lawyer, the Palmers couldn't have been prouder. When both P.J and Patsy graduated five years later, both at the top of their class. Eunice Palmer cried, at their ceremony. She just watched her little girl with pride and her little boy, her little miracle that went through so many hard times, walk across that stage to receive his diploma. It all fell into place in her mind. P.J had finally made a place for himself in the world and that was everything she had ever wanted for her youngest boy.

Patsy moved on to join the fire-department, leaving behind her dreams of Broadway. While P.J stopped going by 'P.J' and started going by 'Jimmy' for his middle name as he went to medical school, hoping to become a medical examiner once he graduated. That was how he managed to score a job working as an assistant M.E to Dr. Donald Mallard, a.k.a Ducky. He looked quite different by this time, he now had hearing aids that he hid in his ears and he wore his contact and glasses religiously. No one at NCIS ever noticed anything different about him. Even Abby who grew up in Deaf culture herself.

-TimeSkip-

"Palmer! Get outta there!"

"Patsy!"

Patsy Palmer leapt out of the way of a flying fiery beam as she pressed her communicator against her ear. Her director was ordering her to leave while her husband, a fellow firefighter named Danny, was calling her name behind him. She did want to leave, the fumes were trying to penetrate through her helmet and she was already feeling light-headed. But she had to get to the kid that was screaming for help in the next room over.

The terrified woman outside had told her that her blind son, Dominic was trapped inside their home and that she would have to go get him. Patsy had instantly stopped her and had gone into the building herself, if only so the woman wouldn't put herself in harms way. When the young woman first heard the little boy's terrified screams, she had thought of her twin. If she was Dominic's age and P.J had been trapped in a burning building, she would've wanted a fire fighter to do everything to save him and that was what Patsy was going to do.

"There's a kid trapped in here, I'm going to get him!"

Patsy yelled into her communicator as she ducked under several beams, she could feel the heat in the air even from inside her suit and she oreads felt the overwhelming urge to cough from the smoke. But the little boy's cries still reached her ears and she thrust herself even closer to the child's room.

"Let it go, Patsy! You can't save them all!"

"Palmer! I don't know how long I can keep this building upright! Get the kid and hurry!"

Patsy finally reached the boy's door and she made sure to alert the child that she was there. She rested her hands against the door and was relieved to find it cool to the touch, even though it was locked.

"I'M GOING TO GET YOU, OKAY? GET AWAY FROM THE DOOR!"

Patsy screeched as she got ready and after several swings, managed to get her axe full through the door, at least enough so that she could fight her way through. Which she did, when she looked around the fire bright room, she heard whimpering coming from the closet. When she got there, she wrenched the door open to find a little blond boy covered in soot, a piece of melted metal in his hands. Patsy gently rested her hand on the child's shoulder.

"Hi, my name's Patsy. I'm going to get you out of here, okay?"

She said firmly and the little boy nodded, so she scooped him into her arms gently. Before bolting for the exit, the child pressed against her chest.

"I got the kid, we're leaving!"

Patsy cried into her communicator, loudly. She vaguely registered the fact that Danny or maybe her boss said something, but he didn't hear it. All she could hear were her own screams as she fell through the burned floor. The next thing she knew, everything was in pain, she was burning...it was burning right though her skin to the marrow of her bones. She heard the sound of a choking wail, barely registering that it was her own.

"Hold on, Patsy...please hold on..."


	2. Chapter 2

Jimmy yawned and ran his hand through his dark curly hair as he sat up in bed, he knew he would have to get ready for the day, but for some reason he had a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He recognized it as the feeling he got when Patsy broke her arm at a friend's birthday party when they were nine. But Jimmy brushed off the feeling and made a mental note to call his twin later, when he came back from work.

The young man slowly heaved himself out of bed and shuffled towards his bathroom, grabbing his retractable seeing-eye cane as he did so. Whenever j moved around in his messy bedroom, or went somewhere he didn't know well enough. He would have to use the cane, his depth perception was totally screwy and even though his aids gave him most of his hearing back, some light sounds like the rustling of clothes or light footfalls on his blind side were almost undetectable, which was why he needed the cane. _(Except at NCIS, where he folded the cane and hid it with his stuff. He didn't want to answer the questions.)_

Jimmy looked at himself in the bathroom with his good eye as he combed his hair with one hand and popped in his aids with the other, he made sure to adjust them as he did so. Then he put in his green contact, so both of his eyes looked the same, before pushing on his glasses and looking at himself in the mirror. Normal, boring Jimmy Palmer. Perfect. The young M.E grabbed his bag, jacket and cap before dashing out the door. He was so preoccupied that he didn't notice the way that his phone was incessantly buzzing in his pocket, the screen blinking the fact that Clark was calling him yet again.

-TimeSkip-

'Pick up, Peej. Why won't you pick up?'

Clark Palmer thought in frustration as he clasped his hands and rested them on the side of his little sister's hospital bed. He felt sick to his stomach as he looked at his once beautiful baby sister, she was only alive because of a tube going down her mouth. Her body was completely covered in forth degree burns, she looked like a mummy, those long, dark curly locks that she had prided herself on so much during her teenage years, were completely gone. But worst of all...she was brain dead.

"Uncle Clark? Is Mommy gonna be okay?"

Clark looked down at the little five-year-old boy who had tugged on his pant leg. His heart clenched in sadness as he looked at Tyler Palmer, a seventeen year old Patsy's mistake. She had gotten pregnant at seventeen and Tyler was the consequence. A beautiful ginger haired little boy who loved his Mommy very much.

"Ty, your Mommy's very hurt right now and she might have to go away for a little while."

The little boy reached up with a shaking hand and tugged his rainbow colored yamakah off his head, the child walked slowly over to his mother and rested the tiny circular hat next to her prone form. Before leaning over and pressing a soft kiss to her bandaged forehead. Then he slowly walked back to his Uncle and shifted his Spider-Man backpack on his narrow and childlike shoulders.

"Can I go home with you then?"

Tyler whispered, proffering a tiny hand to his Uncle, who's heart clenched in painful sadness once again. But Tyler couldn't live with him, he was only going to be in the states for a little while before his job took him to Europe. But P.J could take him, and that how the idea blossomed in Clark's mind and he gently scooped up the little boy, resting him on one hip as he tugged out his cellphone with the other. Now all he had to do was use his Family map to find P.J.

"Where are we going Uncle Clark?"

"To find your Uncle P.J."

Clark answered softly as he twisted to plant a small kiss on the little boy's brow. The lawyer honestly didn't care that he was missing a case or that his unit was horrible rumpled and wrinkled. All that mattered was finding P.J. Clark sent one last fleeting look at his sister before closing the door to her room.

-PlaceSkip-

Jimmy Palmer was expecting a slow day as he pulled up to a crime scene in an NCIS van. He and Dr. Mallard got out and began their normal act of helping the Team, Dr. Mallard gave his excuse that Jimmy had gotten them lost once again which really wasn't a fair accusation as Dr. Mallard was the one with the map, but anyway, it was all normal.

At least until Jimmy and Dr. Mallard began to load the body onto the stretcher and put the corpse into the van. That was when Jimmy heard the sound of a man yelling and a child crying. The young M.E whipped his head around to hear a familiar agonized cry of...'PATRICK JAMES!'. Instantly his lone eye tried to focus on the young man in a suit that was being held back by Tony and McGee. But when he saw the little ginger haired boy racing towards him, he instantly bent down and let the child catapult into his arms. Jimmy bumped the boy onto his knee as he raced over to the young man that was undoubtably Clark.

"STOP! STOP! THAT'S MY BROTHER!"

Jimmy yelled as he neared them, Tyler held tightly in his arms. Tony and McGee looked at him in confusion but he only had eyes for his dirt covered, suit wearing, rumpled older brother. The young man extended a hand towards his younger brother and cried with all his might.

"P.J...it's Patsy."

Instantly, Jimmy's heart sunk.


End file.
